


I Loved You First

by litakelly



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Character Study, Love, M/M, Songfic, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-12
Updated: 2014-06-12
Packaged: 2018-02-04 09:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1774345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/litakelly/pseuds/litakelly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto loves Jack and embraces all the danger that comes with loving a man who cannot die. Kind of a character study of both Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones and what they mean to each other, based off of two lines from Samson by Regina Spektor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Loved You First

**Author's Note:**

> My first Torchwood fic! Please comment, I'd love to know what you think :)

_You are my sweetest downfall_

_I loved you first_

_-Regina Spektor_

  


For all that being with Jack was exciting and wholly different from anyone else, things were essentially the same after Ianto and Jack became involved. The coffee, the banter, the archive, it stayed the same, although he did see more field action. Whether their time fighting together encouraged their physical relationship or the new dynamic prompted his shift to field agent Ianto couldn’t tell, but either way the two seemed interlinked. It was rare that Jack and Ianto wouldn’t end up in bed together after a weevil hunt, sometimes not even making to a bed.  


  


But after eight months of being… whatever they were, things _were_ different. _He_ was different. He was changed, he had new purpose, and he was a new person. He and Lisa had shared their own kind of love; it had been young and sweet, pure in a way that only first love can be, but this was different.  


  


Knowing Jack meant being aware that you could never really know him, not completely. But that didn’t stop Ianto from falling in love with the man underneath the alluring charm, the hero. The one he knew had seen struggle and pain and come out the other side a better man. It wasn’t those born good at heart who bore true courage, not in Ianto’s mind, it was those who struggled and fought to become something better, and Ianto had seen Jack struggle. It wasn’t always easy, to live with the decisions no one else could make, but Jack did it. He made the difficult decisions so the team could sleep free from the burdens of what those choices cost him. Ianto knew Jack hadn’t always been a nice man, he had told him things that turned his stomach, but he wasn’t that man anymore. He was always growing, striving to be better, and Ianto knew it had started sometime long before he knew him. Whatever prompted it, it connected to part of him that had been previously buried, something small that Ianto knew burned from somewhere deep in his heart. It was the place that had yearned to protect his brother, to fiercely defend his team, and had time and again saved the earth from destruction. He was their leader, humanity’s protector, and a hero to his core; lost at one time, hidden from the light, but resurrected and stronger than ever, immortal as the man himself. That was the man Ianto was undeniably, inexplicably in love with.  


  


Ianto certainly wasn’t the first person to love Jack, and he wouldn’t be the last, but his love was unique. It was borne of two people who made each other better; they gave each other strength and lived each day knowing it wouldn’t last. It never could, one day Ianto would die, and they gave up dismay in favour of living and loving equal measures in abandon. As time went on it didn’t fade as Ianto had surmised and feared, it only grew within him, and despite his flirtation and teasing, Jack loved him. Jack loved him for what he was as well; for at his core Ianto was strong, loyal, and willing to die for those he loved. But above all of this they both shared a great respect and admiration for a trait they recognized in each other, an indefinable zest for life without fear. To joke and deface any threat rather than let it have its day, to know that life is brief and find the humour in the little moments; to laugh at life, to live fully, and to love thoroughly.  


  


Ianto wasn’t sure when that change had come about, but it seemed to go hand in hand with loving a man who could never die. He embraced life and all the danger that came with working for Torchwood, and all that came with loving Jack. Those were both things that often got people killed and to embrace loving Jack meant coming to terms with one’s own mortality. Ianto had seen unimaginable horrors, faced his fears and come to the table at peace with his life to find that Jack loved him as well. He didn’t know when that had happened, but whether he spoke it or not, it was undeniably there and it was more than Ianto could have asked for. He knew one day it would be his ruin, no one in Torchwood ever lived to draw their pension, but it didn’t matter, he loved Jack first, and that was enough.


End file.
